Patrick Clark

Venture capital firms have come to see small business lending as an industry ripe for a shakeup, given the slow pace of lending since the financial crisis and unmet demand for credit, which is estimated at billions of dollars a year. Funding Circle, a British peer-to-peer lender, is the latest to benefit: The company announced on Wednesday a new $65 million dose of capital from Index Ventures and other firms. Funding Circle’s online platform lets individual or institutional investors fund loans thatRead More

Patrick Clark

Small Business Administration boss Maria Contreras-Sweet was in New York City on Thursday to visit Bayside Milk Farm, a local business that isn’t really a dairy (it’s a food market), and to announce a small business lending record that isn’t really a record (more on that below). The agency guaranteed $19.2 billion under its working-capital loan program in the 12 months ended Sept. 30 (PDF). To celebrate, it fired off a press release today with theRead More